Transforming Static Data Into a Self-Serving Analytics Platform

About Pearson English

Pearson English is the world’s foremost provider of English Language Learning services. In 2015 the team supported over a million students learning via digital products in more than 140 countries. Pearson English needed to be able to quickly analyze data in a self-serving platform and easily share insights across the company. They use these insights to drive better decisions, such as where to focus Sales and Marketing efforts, considering product improvements and prioritisation of development resource.

The Challenge

The analytics team workload was spread between two areas - routine reporting with follow up requests and deep analysis to support business improvement. They wanted minimize the time spent on routine reporting and ad hoc requests in order to prioritize responsive reporting. This would allow the team to focus on deep analysis and support the business develop personalized learning products.

Also, the team found Excel based reports shared by email could easily be missed and some stakeholders reporting difficulty in navigating the reports to find the figures they required.

The team wanted to share reports that would be simple to access, intuitive to use and have the ability to query significant amounts of data on the spot. This would allow the business to resolve their own specific questions, reducing the time needed of the analytics team to support ad hoc requests.

Now, with dynamic reporting in Chartio, we’re able to extract more information from our data, filter reports to create custom dashboards by geography and product, and easily share insights with the business to support decision making.

“Now, with dynamic reporting in Chartio, we’re able to extract more information from our data, filter reports to create custom dashboards by geography and product, and easily share insights with the business to support decision making.”

The Solution

Before moving forward, Pearson English drew up a list of technical requirements that needed to be met. “We wanted an engaging platform that was easy for everyone in the organization to use, connected to our data warehouse, shareable and able to provide drill down capabilities.”

“With other competitive solutions, you had to install proprietary software to be able to share and view a report. Whereas with Chartio, we can send a simple link to a browser based dashboard or chart.”

With an easy to use solution, Pearson English was able to give data autonomy to everyone who needed it, which allowed them to build dashboards, ask the right questions and get answers.

Chartio offered simplification of the entire process for Pearson English - from data requests right through to reporting and sharing. “Before, we spent time creating Excel based reports which were emailed to stakeholders. They had to be downloaded and any requests for further breakdowns would join the backlog.”

With data becoming more accessible through Chartio, the impact on our Sales and Marketing teams was instantaneous and allowed everyone to quickly answer their own specific questions without the need for requesting further data.

“With data becoming more accessible through Chartio, the impact on our Sales and Marketing teams was instantaneous and allowed everyone to quickly answer their own specific questions without the need for requesting further data.”

The Application

Today, Pearson English is able to directly connect to digital activation and product usage data in their Redshift data warehouse, to visualize how their products are performing across markets.

Further, with the drill down feature, Pearson English can now quickly analyze and understand access to individual products in a given school and see how their access compares over time.

We’re transforming into a data-driven company. With that, we’re making more informed business decisions with data being accessible to appropriate teams in a clear format. In turn teams are now able to see what factors influence performance.

“We’re transforming into a data-driven company. With that, we’re making more informed business decisions with data being accessible to appropriate teams in a clear format. In turn teams are now able to see what factors influence performance.”

With their cleared capacity, the analytics team are able to spend more time on developing additional reporting features or deep dive analytics. Currently they’re creating product usage dashboards to understand for each product how different features and content affect learner outcomes.

With this wider view of product access and usage, Pearson English can see how users engage with their products different features and content within different geographies, allowing them to consider testing hypothesis for product improvements.

“Following data-driven testing of hypothesis, we can implement product improvements and identify potential learner pathways in the content to drive an improved learning experience. This work will support the development of personalized learning and ultimately lead to better learner outcomes.”

“Chartio has been instrumental in helping us understand usage of our products–from understanding global access of our products to seeing which activities our users get stuck on. Chartio will allow us to iterate our products and essentially provide the best learner outcomes.”